LIFE OF THE PARTY (2018)
Clean laughs are marred by salacious college hijinks.
Should You Watch It?
Life of the Party has real comic talent and several genuinely funny, clean scenes. Melissa McCarthy brings lively energy, and Maya Rudolph delivers a hilarious performance as Christine. The 1980s dance battle and the nervous archeology presentation show how funny this movie can be without crude material.
But the movie repeatedly undercuts those strengths. It includes strong sexual content and references, including Deanna’s implied affair with a fraternity guy half her age. It also contains more than 40 light profanities and more than 20 obscenities. The story offers some morally uplifting warnings about hurting others, but its central encouragement to follow personal desires and lusts makes the content harder to overlook.
If you are an adult who wants to judge this comedy at home, it has enough clean humor to offer some enjoyment. For children, young teens, and family movie night, choose something else.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESAfter Deanna’s husband tells her he wants a divorce, she decides to finish her college degree at the university where her daughter, Maddie, is a senior. At first, Maddie is embarrassed by her mother, but Deanna’s quirky energy wins over Maddie’s friends.
As Deanna begins a new chapter, her youthful confidence attracts attention and strains her relationship with her daughter. She must find a way to make amends and regain Maddie’s respect.
Is It Any Good?
Three stars means this is a funny, better-made Melissa McCarthy comedy that does not always know where it is going. The movie has many clean jokes, including a funny 1980s dance battle with a snooty college student and an extremely nervous classroom presentation.
Maya Rudolph’s performance as Christine is especially hilarious and worthy of a supporting actress comedy nomination at the Golden Globes. The comedy often recalls Lucille Ball or Harold Lloyd, with characters striving for a better life.
The weakness is the narrative. The movie would benefit from a more cohesive, consistent structure. Its clean parts are often funnier than its bawdier material.
The Worldview
The movie presents a strong Romantic worldview centered on following dreams, personal desires, and lusts, including premarital sex. Deanna’s pursuit of a new life is treated as liberating, but the film also offers light moral warnings about going so far in that direction that you alienate and hurt others.
The story includes positive, loving moments between a mother and her adult daughter. Yet Deanna is not always a positive role model, and the film’s romantic outlook can blur the difference between personal fulfillment and moral wisdom.
The movie’s best comedy does not require crude or lewd material. Its cleaner moments suggest that genuine comic talent can create laughter without relying on bawdy bits.
The film recognizes that selfish choices can damage relationships, especially between a mother and daughter. Scripture gives that concern a clearer foundation: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude” (1 Corinthians 13:4).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Strong Non-Christian Romantic worldview about following your dreams and personal desires/lusts, including premarital sex, with some light moral elements warning about going so far in that direction that you alienate and hurt others, plus some positive, loving moments between a mother and an adult daughter, though the mother isn’t always a positive role model
Foul Language
About 22 obscenities (including some SOBs and a few “h” words) and 41 light profanities (“Oh God” or OMG)
Violence
Light comic violence such as woman lights some of her cheating husband’s stuff on fire, and a tiny explosion occurs to make her flip backwards, two women fight, several women vandalize a wedding reception while the bride and groom are getting married at the church, woman faints and collapses after being so nervous about public speaking that she sweats profusely and apparently hyperventilates
Sex
Strong sexual content and references overall, though no depicted sex or bedroom scenes, which includes married couple is always searching for a place to be intimate, references to implied fornications between middle-aged woman and a college man half her age, implied fornication between a daughter and her boyfriend, mother makes jokes about her private parts to her daughter, mother mentions suckling her daughter as an infant and makes a comment about her breasts
Nudity
Upper male nudity in one or two scenes
Alcohol Use
Alcohol use and brief drunkenness with an apparent hangover after one night
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
No tobacco smoking, but college women unknowingly eat marijuana-laced candy and start hallucinating, after which they vandalize a wedding reception out of revenge;
Miscellaneous Immorality
Man disrespects his ex-wife by saying several times that his girlfriend and soon-to-be-new-wife is an “upgrade” and has it written on a wedding display at his church wedding, some insults, an instance of revenge that’s rebuked, and woman in a college class cuts a lock of a snooty woman’s hair after the woman hurls some insults toward her and her older friend.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Deanna’s choices eventually alienate her daughter. How can pursuing personal desires hurt the people we love?
Philippians 2:3–4 · 1 Corinthians 13:4–5The movie presents a new beginning as a chance to follow your dreams. How should Christians pursue dreams while submitting them to God’s wisdom?
Proverbs 3:5–6 · James 4:13–15The story includes a mother and daughter learning to respect one another again. What does making amends require after we have caused hurt?
Matthew 5:23–24 · Colossians 3:13The comedy’s clean scenes are often funnier than its bawdier material. What helps us recognize humor that brings joy without dishonoring others?
Ephesians 5:3–4 · Philippians 4:8The Final Word
Life of the Party has genuine comic talent, several clean laughs, and a warm mother-daughter thread. But its sexual content, salacious behavior, and excessive profanity make it a poor family choice. For discerning adults, wait to judge it at home. WAIT FOR HOME — ADULTS ONLY.
